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When Hip Hop Stars Threaten to Retire

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Jay Z

Jay may be the best rapper alive, but he’s the worst at retiring. Back in 1996, he vowed that Reasonable Doubt would be his first and only album. But the following year he was back on record shelves with In My Lifetime… Vol. 1. Hov said goodbye to the game again in 2003, this time with much fanfare: The Black Album, his “last” concert at Madison Square Garden and the aptly titled documentary Fade to Black.

Three years later he was back at it with Kingdom Come, and he hasn’t looked back — except to regret that he ever threatened retirement in the first place. "I think I pulled the retirement ripcord too many times,” he said in 2007. “People looking at me like, 'Please shut up.’”